The Crossing
Seaplane from Miami to Mangrove Cay by Private Charter
Mangrove Cay is one of the four parts Andros is divided into and the only one you cannot drive to.
Tidal channels called bights cut it off from the island above and the island below, so the official island guide says travel from one end of Andros to the other has to be done by air or by sea. A seaplane from Miami to Mangrove Cay is the version of that sentence that takes about an hour.
Downtown Miami to the cay is roughly 188 statute miles, about 163 nautical and almost every one of them is water. The aircraft lifts off Biscayne Bay, turns east and crosses the Gulf Stream while you are still looking at it. The deep blue gives way to the pale shallows of the Great Bahama Bank, then the pine forest of Andros comes up low and green and the floats settle inside the bights.
Everything between those two moments is ours: the departure point in Miami, the aircraft and the crew, both border filings and the travel documents the Bahamas wants before you leave Florida. Your party brings passports and a bag.
Up to nine seats travel on one booking from a seaplane base in Miami and this is one of several seaplane routes out of the city. The cay is not a port of entry, so the aircraft clears Bahamian customs further up the island first and flies the last few minutes south afterwards.
Plan Your Mangrove Cay Charter
How It Works
How a Seaplane Miami to Mangrove Cay Actually Works
Andros is a different country, so a day on Mangrove Cay is two border crossings in one day. Filed in advance it is paperwork. Left to the morning it is the reason an itinerary falls apart. The distance is the short part.
Two governments want the passenger list before the aircraft moves and both filings sit on our side of the desk rather than yours. What follows is the whole sequence in order, from the water at the Miami end to the ramp where the day finishes on the way home.
Plan Your Mangrove Cay CharterDistance and Time
A hundred and eighty eight miles of open water, about an hour of it in the air
Downtown Miami to Mangrove Cay is roughly 188 statute miles, about 163 nautical, almost all of it water. On floats that is close to an hour airborne, plus the taxi out and the water landing at the far end.
The Whole Aircraft
The aircraft is chartered whole, so your party flies to Mangrove Cay together and comes home together
The aircraft stays on the island rather than turning around, so six hours ashore means six hours.
Water Landing
The floats land inside the bights, which is the front door of a cay with no road to it
Mangrove Cay is separated from the rest of Andros by tidal channels, so every other way in ends with a boat or a flight anyway. The airstrip on the cay is Clarence A. Bain, identifiers MAY and MYAB, a single asphalt runway of 5,000 feet. A seaplane skips the transfer at the far end and puts the party down on the water instead. The mechanics sit in the water landing guide.
Leaving Miami
Leaving Miami for Mangrove Cay means the manifest is filed before you reach the dock
Every passenger needs a valid passport, children included and a driving licence will not do. What counts as valid is in the travel documents guidance. Names and numbers go in from our side, in advance.
Arriving on Andros
Arriving in the Bahamas means clearing at a port of entry and Mangrove Cay is not one
Andros carries three: San Andros in the north, Fresh Creek at Andros Town in the middle and Congo Town in the south, each with an airfield and a public dock. Mangrove Cay sits between the last two and has neither desk of its own.
So the aircraft clears at whichever of the three the routing and the hours make sensible, Fresh Creek being the one that lies on the line down from Miami about 25 nautical miles north of the cay and flies the last few minutes afterwards. Passports out, forms already filed from Florida and it is quick.
The Way Back
The way back carries its own clock and it ends usually at US customs in Opa-locka
Water landings run only from 30 minutes after sunrise to 30 minutes before sunset, so nothing on floats arrives in the dark and the return leg carries a deadline from the moment the date is set.
Bahamian customs desks keep normal hours of 09:00 to 17:30, a clearance outside them carries an overtime fee paid to the officers and the daylight window moves through the year. The two clocks together set the last useful departure for your date.
The return is filed with US Customs before you leave and that filing decides where the aircraft may put down in South Florida. Opa-locka Executive is where a return from the islands clears, so a day that started on the water often finishes on a ramp. We take care of both ends of any chartered flight from Miami to the Bahamas.
Departure Points
Departure Points for a Seaplane Miami to Mangrove Cay
A seaplane needs no airport at the Miami end, so the departure point follows your morning rather than the aircraft. Two of these four put you on the water, two on a ramp.
Miami Seaplane Base
555 NE 15th St, Miami
The water departure, on Biscayne Bay just north of downtown. Boarding is from the dock, so nothing between the car and the aircraft looks like an airport. The shortest ground leg for Brickell, downtown and the beach and the usual choice when a yacht is the other half of the day.
Opa-locka Executive
Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport, OPF
The executive airport north west of the city, with private terminal handling at both ends of the day. It is also where a return from the islands clears US customs, which is why an international day that leaves from the water often comes back here rather than to the dock it started from.
Miami Executive
Miami Executive Airport, TMB, Kendall
Kendall-Tamiami, in the south west of the county. When the aircraft for your date is already based at this field, the charter starts without a positioning leg. That matters most on a same day return, where an hour lost in Florida is an hour lost at the far end.
Miami International
Miami International Airport, MIA
A pickup rather than a base and the right one when the party is already landing at MIA and the onward leg should leave from the same airport. No aircraft is stationed here, so it is arranged per flight and confirmed with the operator before it is quoted.
How to Charter
How to Charter a Seaplane to Mangrove Cay from Miami
Chartering a seaplane is not booking a seat. There are four steps, and only the first one is yours.
Plan Your Mangrove Cay Charter- 01
Contact Us
Write to us on WhatsApp or by email. Send your dates, how many guests, where you are coming from and where you want to travel. Tell us the hour you would like to leave. A seaplane lands on water and on runways. Your pickup can be a marina, a hotel dock or a beach, and an airport works just as well.
- 02
Get Aircraft and Prices Back
We check what is free on your date and send the seaplanes that fit. Seats, baggage and flight time for each one. Every aircraft costs a little differently, so we can find the best fit for you.
- 03
Confirm and Pay
You pick the aircraft, and we set the pickup point and the landing site. Then everything around the flight. Catering on board, a car or a golf cart waiting when you land, ground transport to your hotel or back to the airport. Flowers if the day is a special one. You approve it, you pay, and your boarding time, departure point and everything included come back to you.
- 04
Just Arrive 30 Minutes Early
You will have no terminal and no queue. Just make sure you are there 30 minutes before. Then you take off, land right at your destination, and enjoy the day.
On the Island
Where a Miami to Mangrove Cay Seaplane Puts You Down
Mangrove Cay is a low green island between two tidal channels, with one road running from Moxey Town in the north east down past the airstrip to Lisbon Creek at the southern end. The water arrival puts you on that road rather than at the end of a transfer, which is the whole reason a day here works.
What follows is what parties actually do with the hours in between, starting in the water and working outwards.
Plan Your Mangrove Cay CharterThe Bights and the Flats
Most Asked For
The bights are the reason the cay has a name outside the Bahamas. They are tidal channels rather than rivers, open at both ends and the flats inside them run for miles in water that rarely comes above the knee.
Andros is called the bonefish capital of the world and the middle of the island is where that claim is earned: the bights together with the banks off the far shore make up the largest area of bonefish habitat anywhere.
Soft bottom is fished from the bow of a skiff, hard sand is waded and which of the two you get depends on the tide more than on the guide. Parties book bonefishing and flats access or a full fishing day by seaplane. Rods and gear travel, within the payload for the aircraft on the day.
The Andros Barrier Reef
Snorkel and Dive
The reef runs down the east coast of the island in front of you and it is the third largest barrier reef in the world, roughly 190 miles from end to end.
Behind it the water is shallow enough to stand in. In front of it the bottom falls away into the Tongue of the Ocean, a trench that begins almost at the reef line and goes down thousands of feet.
Snorkellers and divers are therefore looking at two completely different things within a few hundred yards of each other. The marine parks that protect this stretch cover 8,500 acres of it. Say which of the two the party wants when you send the date: a dive boat and a snorkel boat are not always the same boat.
The Blue Holes
Inland and Offshore
Andros carries more than 180 blue holes, inland and along the shore, the highest concentration of them found anywhere in the world. They are flooded cave mouths rather than ponds, fresh at the top and salt underneath. The inland ones sit back in the pine forest at the end of a track.
The ocean holes are the other half and they are a boat trip rather than a drive. Both are worth naming when you send the date, because the inland ones need a vehicle and the offshore ones need the right state of tide. Neither arranges itself once the party is already on the island.
Moxey Town and Lisbon Creek
One Road
Moxey Town sits at the north east corner and everybody on the island calls it Little Harbour. The single road runs south from there past the airstrip and the school to Lisbon Creek at the far end and the whole of it is a short drive rather than a day. This is a working waterfront, not a resort strip.
Sponging is still a real part of the local economy, the boats go out from the settlements and mains electricity and a paved road only reached the cay in 1989. Fewer than a thousand people live here. That is the character of the place and it is why parties who want a beach club go somewhere else and parties who want quiet come back.
From Lisbon Creek a free government ferry crosses the South Bight to Driggs Hill in South Andros twice a day and takes about half an hour, which is how the island connects southwards when nobody is flying.
The Sandbars at Low Water
Low Water Only
At low water the banks inside the bights dry into open sand in the middle of the sea, with nothing on them and nothing around them. That is where a beach picnic goes and where the rays come in shin deep.
Add water toys if the party wants the afternoon on the water rather than on the sand, or a dock pickup if a boat is meeting you. Low water is what decides the hour, not the one you would prefer and it is the single part of a day here that is set by the sea rather than by the aircraft.
The West Side and the Backcountry
The Far Shore
The far shore of Andros is the emptiest coast in the Bahamas and it is protected: the West Side National Park covers 1.5 million acres of creek, mangrove and mud, with no settlement on any of it. Getting there overland is not a thing that happens.
It is reached across the bights by boat, which is a long morning, or from the air, which is the reason a float aircraft belongs on this island at all. A day that includes the west side is planned as a day rather than added to one, so say it in the enquiry and not on the beach.
A Table and a Long Lunch
Ashore
Eating here is settlement cooking rather than a menu: conch, crab, whatever came in that morning, cooked where you can see it. There are a handful of places along the road and the good afternoon is usually the one that ends at one of them.
Guests who want a table rather than a boat book a fly and dine day and a party that fills the aircraft simply books the aircraft rather than a row of seats inside it, on one booking, whoever is travelling. Anything outside the usual list goes to custom requests.
Onward Across the Tongue
Same Aircraft
A private seaplane charter Miami to Mangrove Cay also works as the first leg rather than the whole day. The same aircraft carries on east across the Tongue of the Ocean to Nassau, Harbour Island or Staniel Cay and the Exumas. Grand Bahama lies north on the way home.
That is what turns one island into island hopping or a wider Bahamas day. Overnight changes the baggage rather than the route. If a yacht is meeting you, the aircraft can set the party down alongside instead of at a pier. That is a yacht transfer and it is the reason a good number of these flights happen at all.
The full island guide sits on the Mangrove Cay destination page, the wider island on the Andros destination page, the packaged version is the Mangrove Cay getaway day trip and the rest of the chain is on the Bahamas destinations page.
Ready When You Are
Ready to Book Seaplane Flights from Miami to Mangrove Cay?
Send the departure point, the number of guests and from when to when. You get back what is free on your dates, the boarding time and what the day costs, before anything is booked.
Add-Ons
Seaplane to Mangrove Cay Add-Ons
Anything else you have in mind is arranged with the flight.
In Detail
Seaplane from Miami to Mangrove Cay: The Gulf Stream, the Bights and a Water Landing
Everything above is the day. What follows is the detail behind it: the crossing, the two borders, the rest of the chain and what charter and private actually change about a flight to the Bahamas.
Seaplane Miami to Mangrove Cay: Flying Low Over the Reef and the Flats
Room enough and a window each on a Mangrove Cay seaplane
The crossing is not dead time between two airports. A seaplane runs low and slow, so the water under the wing is the first thing the day gives you. Downtown Miami to the cay is roughly 188 statute miles, about 163 nautical and almost every one of them is water. The Bahamian declaration goes in from Florida, the aircraft clears at one of the three ports of entry on Andros and the US return is filed before you leave, which is what sets where you may land coming home. A float aircraft settles where a keel would not go and where a runway would put you an island away, so a fishing day by seaplane starts at the water rather than at a transfer. A chartered aircraft sits there until your party is finished, so six hours ashore is six hours. Every seat is a window seat on seaplanes in the fleet of this size, so nobody watches the crossing over someone's shoulder. Other seaplane routes from Miami fly the same way.
Seaplane to Mangrove Cay from Miami: You Decide the Departure Time
Your hour, your names and a seaplane to Mangrove Cay
Nobody hands you a timetable on a charter. The day is built around the hour you name. You name the hour you want to lift off, the hour you want to be standing on Mangrove Cay and which water in the city suits your morning. The aircraft belongs to your party for the day, so all three are your decision rather than a departure somebody else set, and a change the week before is a message to us. If the drive is shorter the other way, the same day runs out of Fort Lauderdale. Half an hour before the lift-off is the whole of the check-in. Your party walks from the car to the aircraft, the bags go on in front of you, and the list for that flight carries your names and nobody else's. Nothing about the morning waits on a stranger. A chartered aircraft sits there until your party is finished, so six hours ashore is six hours. And the crossing is a reason in itself. The windows are deep and the aircraft crosses low, so there is room for everybody to sit and watch the water change instead of taking turns at one of them.
Miami to Mangrove Cay Seaplane: The Crew Files Both Borders, You Carry a Passport
Passports are all your party carries on a Mangrove Cay crossing
A seaplane from Miami to Mangrove Cay crosses an international border twice in a day. It is the part that goes wrong when nobody files it in advance. Entry into the Bahamas asks for a declaration filed from Florida, clearance at a port of entry on arrival and a US return filed before you leave, which is what sets where you may land coming home. On a Crown Air charter the crew files all three. Your party carries a valid passport and nothing else. Passports for everyone, children included, per the travel documents guidance. What may travel sits in the baggage guidance. That same filing sets where you land coming home: a return from the islands clears at Opa-locka Executive, so a day that began on the water finishes on a ramp and a departure moved by weather runs under the weather and delays policy. If the party changes before the flight, the crew refiles. A name added, a name dropped: that is a message to us rather than a problem for you.
Seaplane Miami Mangrove Cay: Milestone Days and Bahamas Weekends
A day trip, a weekend or something to celebrate on Mangrove Cay
A private seaplane from Miami to Mangrove Cay is booked when the day is worth marking: a birthday, a proposal, a graduation, a weekend away with the people who matter. The flight is short enough that the occasion, not the travelling, is what the day is about. That is what a seaplane Miami Mangrove Cay charter is for. There is no terminal to walk through and no queue at either end, so the party stays together from the car to the cabin. The aircraft waits rather than turning around for its next departure, so an afternoon that runs long is simply an afternoon that runs long. Some parties fly over for the day and are home the same evening. Others stay on and book the return for the day they want. Both are the same charter, and the whole group travels together on one booking. If there is something to celebrate, say so when you book: catering, a private chef, premium beverages and flowers travel with you. Everything is in place before you board in Miami.
Questions
Seaplane from Miami to Mangrove Cay: Questions Answered
How long is the flight from Miami to Mangrove Cay?
About an hour in the air. Mangrove Cay lies roughly 188 statute miles from downtown Miami, about 163 nautical, almost all of it open water. The exact block time depends on the aircraft and the departure point and it is confirmed with the boarding time before you book. What sets the length of the day is not the flight. It is the two border filings and how long the aircraft waits for you.
Do I need a passport to fly to Mangrove Cay?
Yes. Mangrove Cay is part of Andros in the Bahamas, so this is an international flight and every passenger needs a valid passport, children and infants included. Full names and passport numbers go in when you book rather than at the dock, because both border filings are made in advance from our side. There is no check-in desk on this route and nothing to hand over at the slip.
Where does a seaplane land at Mangrove Cay and why not use the airstrip?
A seaplane lands on the water inside the bights, close to where you are staying. The cay does have an airstrip, Clarence A. Bain, identifiers MAY and MYAB, a single asphalt runway of 5,000 feet and a runway arrival is a perfectly good answer on a rough morning. On a normal one the water saves the transfer at the far end, which on an island cut off by tidal channels is the part that costs time.
How does customs work on a seaplane flight to Mangrove Cay?
The Bahamas lets an aircraft arrive only at a designated port of entry. Andros carries three, San Andros, Fresh Creek at Andros Town and Congo Town, each with an airfield and a public dock.
Mangrove Cay is not one of them, so the aircraft clears at whichever of the three suits the routing, Fresh Creek being the one on the line down from Miami and flies the last few minutes afterwards. None of the paperwork is yours: we make both filings and arrange the clearance.
Can you do Mangrove Cay as a day trip from Miami?
Yes, although most parties come for longer, because an hour each way and a clearance stop use more of the morning than a short hop does. Out early, back before dark, with the aircraft waiting on the island rather than turning around, so six hours ashore means six hours. Both borders are filed in advance from our side and the clearance is planned into the hours the officers keep.
How late can we fly back from Mangrove Cay on the same day?
A seaplane needs daylight on the water. Landings run from 30 minutes after sunrise to 30 minutes before sunset, so the day has a hard end rather than an open one. Bahamian customs desks keep normal hours of 09:00 to 17:30 and a clearance outside them carries an overtime fee paid to the officers. Both clocks move through the year, which is why the latest departure for your date comes with the quote.
How many people can fly to Mangrove Cay on one charter?
The aircraft is chartered whole rather than sold by the seat, so your party travels together on one booking and comes home on the same aircraft. How many seats that is depends on which aircraft flies your date and on the payload once baggage is aboard, so it is confirmed with the quote rather than promised in advance. Send the headcount and say whether children are travelling: they count as passengers on an international manifest.
Can we bring rods and fishing gear to Mangrove Cay?
Yes and most parties do, because the bights on either side of the cay are why people come. Rods, reels, wading gear and hard cases all travel regularly, within the payload for the aircraft on the day. The limit is a weight rather than a bag count, which is why bulky equipment is declared when you book rather than weighed at the dock. Valuable gear leaving the United States can be registered with US Customs in advance.
What happens if the weather stops the Mangrove Cay flight?
Water operations depend on wind and sea state as well as visibility, so a departure can move on a day that looks clear from the beach and summer afternoons move return legs more often than mornings.
The call belongs to the operator rather than the guest and you are told before you book how a moved departure is handled. Because the aircraft carries only your party, a new slot is agreed with you rather than assigned to you.
Is flying better than the ferry and the road to Mangrove Cay?
It depends how long you are staying. Reaching the cay by surface means a flight or a boat to another part of Andros, then a drive and then a crossing, because tidal channels cut the cay off at both ends.
The free government ferry from Lisbon Creek across the South Bight to Driggs Hill in South Andros runs twice a day and takes about half an hour. On a week that is scenery. On a single day it is the day.
Can you fly to Mangrove Cay from Fort Lauderdale or West Palm Beach instead?
Yes. Andros is reachable from every departure point in the corridor and the difference in crossing time between them is small once the drive to the water is counted. The right departure point is the one closest to where you are staying, not the one closest to the island. Say where the morning starts and the answer comes back with it already chosen.
What does a private seaplane charter from Miami to Mangrove Cay cost?
A charter is priced as a whole aircraft, not per seat, so the number moves with three things: which aircraft flies your date, how many of you there are once bags are aboard and how long the aircraft waits on the island.
Tell us those and you get one all-in number, with the departure point, the boarding time and the hours ashore it is based on, before anything is due. Bahamian and US entry fees are inside that number rather than added at the end.
Can the seaplane take us on from Mangrove Cay to another island the same day?
Yes. Andros sits on the western edge of the chain and the same aircraft carries on to Nassau, Harbour Island, Staniel Cay and the Exumas across the Tongue of the Ocean. Say so when you send the date, because a second leg changes the aircraft and the timing and the clearance is planned around the port of entry rather than the stop you want.
For a yacht or a private cay we pass the coordinates, the pilots decide whether they can put down there and a tender has to be in the water to collect you.
Can I bring a pet on a seaplane charter?
Yes, pets travel in the cabin with you. The one thing we ask is that you tell us at the enquiry, with the type of animal and its weight, so the seating and the load plan are right from the start.
Next Step
Ready to Book a Seaplane Charter Miami to Mangrove Cay?
Send the departure point, the party size and from when to when. Nothing else needs planning: you get back what is free on your dates, the boarding time and what the Mangrove Cay day costs.
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